Many years ago, I came upon a light with a sensor. I was riding a small motorcycle, not heavy enough to trigger the sensor, I guess. It was late at night with no other traffic for miles around. I felt foolish for a couple of minutes, just sitting there, not a car in sight. Then I ran the red light. I hope the sensors have improved in the years since.

You're both misrepresenting my position. I've said I'm O.K. with incentives if and only if there is a benefit to the political entity giving the incentive. And I've called for an independent analysis of whether or not an incentive will actually benefit the people giving the incentive. This is not the case here.I suspect that if an actual promise were made, in a contract, or on a napkin at a lunch, our two senators would be waving it in front of every T.V, camera in the state. Because that hasn't happened, I'm more of the belief that what really happened was that we hoped the jobs would come here. Of course, IF there was an incentive given to Boeing by the U.S. government, AND if there is a net benefit to the people of the U.S., THEN I'd be in favor of it. But again, if we elect senators who can't even get a promise written on a napkin, then we need to elect different senators. That's on us.

Perhaps he was. I don't know exactly. He may have been referring to 2012 as the year Iran finished work on it's nuclear weapons. Perhaps he was referring to this being the year the ayatollahs would use those weapons. Perhaps he meant this was the year the ayatollahs combined forces with their other peace loving neighbor Assad in Syria so they could impose their brand of peace in the region. The fact is that what he meant to say can be interpreted in many ways. Rather than speculate, why don't you go to Jerusalem and ask him what he meant. Take a side trip to Iran and see for yourself if Iran's nuclear program is a peaceful one. Go to Syria and witness the demonstrations. Go to Egypt and witness the birth of their democratic movement.

I thought we were comparing "rights" (voting) to "rights" (speech, religion). But if you'd like to say the right to vote is an apple and the right of speech is Tuesday, please feel free to make that argument.

I don't know. Hate speech isn't protected specifically because it could cause discord and violence. We wouldn't say the speech is protected and the listener should simply remove himself from listening range. Why impose moving on a person simply wanting to engage in one of the most normal of activities?I'm high on the fence on this issue, playing a little devil's advocate because I'd like to hear arguments both ways.

The way I read it, the cultural change the Mormons were bringing came into a region that already had a male/female ration problem. They were not going into a region that had established cultural norms like in Europe, with a stable male/female ratio. Essentially, what was happening was there was a big problem that was then exacerbated (at least in perception) by the appearance of polygamy.

Some time ago I was reading about how and why opposition to polygamy evolved in the 1800's. The problem was that as many went to the western frontier, men outnumbered women by a large number. When Mormons came into the region, with one man having several wives, there was the fear that resentment would lead to social discord and violence. One can imagine a small town where one man had five wives and several young men had no eligible women around. Obviously, I would not support a policy that is bigoted in it's roots. However, I may support a policy if it's intent to prevent social discord and violence. A prohibition against polygamy seems to have elements of both. I could easily see that in large metropolitan areas, the ratio of men to women would be impacted so little, that a prohibition against polygamy might be rooted in religious bigotry. But in areas with small populations like Southern Utah or Northern Arizona, the imbalance might become substantial. In those areas, prohibitions may well be rooted in preventing discord and violence. Tough call.